From babble to words: Infants' early productions match words and objects in their environment

Catherine Laing; Elika Bergelson

doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101308

From babble to words: Infants' early productions match words and objects in their environment

Catherine Laing, Elika Bergelson

Language and Linguistic Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Infants' early babbling allows them to engage in proto-conversations with caretakers, well before clearly articulated, meaningful words are part of their productive lexicon. Moreover, the well-rehearsed sounds from babble serve as a perceptual 'filter', drawing infants' attention towards words that match the sounds they can reliably produce. Using naturalistic home recordings of 44 10-11-month-olds (an age with high variability in early speech sound production), this study tests whether infants' early consonant productions match words and objects in their environment. We find that infants' babble matches the consonants produced in their caregivers' speech. Infants with a well-established consonant repertoire also match their babble to objects in their environment. Our findings show that infants' early consonant productions are shaped by their input: by 10 months, the sounds of babble match what infants see and hear.

Original language	English
Article number	101308
Number of pages	15
Journal	Cognitive Psychology
Volume	122
Early online date	3 Jun 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101308
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2020

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Acoustic Stimulation
Communication
Female
Humans
Infant
Language Development
Male
Phonetics
Speech Perception/physiology
Verbal Learning

Access to Document

10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101308

https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/133194/

Cite this

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abstract = "Infants' early babbling allows them to engage in proto-conversations with caretakers, well before clearly articulated, meaningful words are part of their productive lexicon. Moreover, the well-rehearsed sounds from babble serve as a perceptual 'filter', drawing infants' attention towards words that match the sounds they can reliably produce. Using naturalistic home recordings of 44 10-11-month-olds (an age with high variability in early speech sound production), this study tests whether infants' early consonant productions match words and objects in their environment. We find that infants' babble matches the consonants produced in their caregivers' speech. Infants with a well-established consonant repertoire also match their babble to objects in their environment. Our findings show that infants' early consonant productions are shaped by their input: by 10 months, the sounds of babble match what infants see and hear.",

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